Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-02-07

IaCe from pulreI9CLlOn lnSQnSrdDle elmer
to human or sngeliC olfactories. You ly
ing and hypocritical world, shut up those
ISLANDERS about the Church of Christ, an
Institution which, far from being what it
ought to be and never pretending to be
perfect, is five hundred times better than
any otler Institution that the world ever
saw or ever dreamt Of. The highest honor
[ ever had, and the highest honor | shall
ever receive, and the highest honor ever
want Is to have my name on her records
as Il member. Al her affairs | repented.
At her sacraments l believed. In her ser
vice let me die. From her doors let me
be buried. 0, Church of God.
Thou home of the righteous.
Thou harbor from tempest,
Thou refuge for the wesry, Thou light
house of many nations Thou type of
heaven! l could kiss thy very dust with
ecstasy of affection.
For her my tears shall fall,
For her my prayers ascend,
To her my tolls and cares be given
I'LL tolls and caree shall END.
"Perfumed smoke" says Solomon, in
the words following my text. Not like
the fumes coughed up from the throat of
6 steamplpe, or poisoned with the gases
of chemical factories, or floating in black
wrath from the conf grafton of home
steadS, or sulphurous from blazing bat
teries, but sweet as q burning grove Of
cinnamon or Jungle of ssssafras, or the
doors of temple censor. 'tWho is this
| that ccmeth out of the wilderness like
pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh
and frankinCense?" Hear it, uen and
women everywhere, that the advance Of
the genuine Church of Carist means peace
for all nations.
Victor Hugo, in his book entitled,
Ninety-Three, says: Nothing calmer
than smoke but nothing more startling
There are peaceful smokes and there are
evil ones. The thickness and the color
of line of smoke make the whole differ
enCe between war and peace, between
| fraternity and hatred. The whole heppi-
ness of man or his complete misery is
sometimes expressed in this thin vepor
which the wind scatterS at will" The
great Frenchman was right, but | go
further and say that as the kingdom of
God advances like pillars of smoke, the
black volumes belchlng from batteries OF
war and pouring out from portfolios of
! ships will vanish from the sky.
A distinguished gentleman Of the lste
war told me recently that Abraham Lin.
coin proposed to avoid our civil conflict
by purchase of all the slaves of the south
and setting them free. He calculated
what would be reasonable price tor
them, and, when the number of millions
of dollars that would be required for
such purpose was announced, the
proposition was secuted, and the north
would not have made the offer and the
south would not have accepted ii if made
''But," said my military friend, "the wal
went on and Just the number of millions
of dollars that Mr. Lincoln calc ulated
would have been enough to make a rea-
sonable purchase of all the slaves, was
spent in war, besides all the precious
lives that were hurled away in the 25C
battles" In other WORDS, there ought to
be some other way for men to settle theil
controversies without wholesale butchery
The church of God will yet become the
arbiter of nations. If the world would
allow it. it could to-day step in between
Germany and France and settle the
trouble about Alsace and Lorraine, and
between Russia and Bulgaria, and be.
tween England ard her antagonists, and
between all the other nations that are
flying at each others threats, and COM
mand peace and dis5and armies, and
harness for the plough the war horses
COW being hitched to the ammunition
wagons, or saddled for cavalry charge
That time must come, or through the in
creased facility for shooting men and
blowing up cities and whelming hosts to
instant death, so that we can kill regl.
ment easier than we could once kill 8
Ill
we could once kill regiment, the patent
offices Of the world more busy than ever
in recognizing new engiEery of destruc.
ton, the human race will after while
go fighting with one arm, and hobbllng
with one foot, and stumbling along with
one eye, and some ingenious inventor in.
spired of the archangel of all mis-.
chief, will contrive machine that
will bore hole to the earth's
center, and some desperate nation will
throw into that hole enough dynamite to
blow this hulk OF planet into fragments,
dropping like meteoric stones on sur,
rounding stellar habitations.
But this shall not be, for whatever else
let GO, hang on to my Bible, which
tells me that the olacksmith's shop shall
vet come to its grandest use when the
warrior and the husbandman shall enter
it side by side, and the soldier shall throw
| into It's bank of fires his sword, and the
farmer shall pick 1t up ploughshare, and
the straightest spear shall De bent into a
crook at each END, and then cut in two,
and what was one spear shall be two
pruning forks. Down with MolOch and
up with Christ! Let no more warehouses
eat out of the manager where Jesus was
| born.
Peace! Forever roll off the sky the
black pillars of smoke from the Marengos
and Sslamsncas and BOrodinos and Sc
dams and. Gettysburgs of earth And
right after them, roll into the heavens the
peaceful vspors from the chimneys of
farm-houses, and asylums, and churches,
and capitals of Christian nations, and, as
the sunlight strikes through these vapors
they will write in letters of Jet and gold
all over the sky from horizon to zenith
"Glory to God in the highest, and on
earth peace, good will to mem" Then
let sll the men-of-war fire broadside,
and all the forts thunder forth resound-
ing volley, ana the earth be girdled with
tue cannonade over the final victory of
the truth.
While thinking of these things looked
out from my window, aDd the wind was
violently blowing. And saw from many
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